BOK faces scrutiny over cybersecurity after staff data breach
Summary
The Bank of Korea is facing scrutiny over cybersecurity after a hack exposed the personal information of 186 employees in a breach earlier this year. The leak happened between May and June through a contractor’s GitHub system used for the BOK’s online training program. The central bank said it was notified on June 11, informed affected employees the next day, and reported the case to the Personal Information Protection Commission.
Key Facts
- The leaked data included employees’ names, email addresses, phone numbers, positions, duties and passwords.
- A BOK official said the contractor notified the bank of the breach on June 11.
- The bank said it informed affected employees on June 12 and reported the incident to the Personal Information Protection Commission.
- The data showed 2,063 hacking attempts targeting the BOK’s website and internal systems between 2021 and August this year.
- Unauthorized access attempts accounted for 1,951 of the attacks, and most of the attempts came from overseas.
Bank of Korea headquarters in Seoul / Courtesy of Bank of Korea
The Bank of Korea (BOK) is facing scrutiny over its cybersecurity after the personal information of 186 employees was leaked in a hacking incident earlier this year, according to central bank's data submitted to Rep. Lee Jong-wook of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), Monday.
The breach occurred between May and June after hackers gained access to a GitHub system used by a contractor for the BOK's online training program.
The leaked information included employees' names, email addresses, phone numbers, positions, duties and passwords.
"We were notified by the contractor of the breach on June 11 and informed the affected employees the following day. We also reported the incident to the Personal Information Protection Commission," a BOK official said.
The PPP lawmaker said the central bank should not take the leak of employees' personal information or repeated disruptions to its websites lightly.
"As the central bank, the BOK should thoroughly assess the causes of the repeated incidents, review its overall security system and establish measures to prevent them from happening again," Lee said.
Hacking attempts targeting the BOK have also increased this year.
A total of 2,063 hacking attempts targeting the central bank's website and internal systems were detected between 2021 and August this year, the data showed.
The number fell steadily from 1,557 cases in 2021 to 192 in 2022, 97 in 2023, 52 in 2024 and 30 in 2025. However, 135 cases were detected in the first eight months of this year, already 4.5 times the total recorded last year.
Unauthorized access attempts accounted for 125 of the attacks detected this year, while 10 involved malware.
The BOK noted that the number of detected attacks in each year was also affected by changes in the security system. The number significantly dropped in 2022 after it moved its email server to cloud and strengthened its login rules.
Of the entire hacking attempts, unauthorized access attempts accounted for 1,951 cases, followed by 95 malware attacks, 16 information-gathering attempts and one distributed denial-of-service attack.
Most of them originated overseas, with 2,024 cases coming from abroad compared with 39 from within Korea. The attacks mainly targeted the BOK's public website, statistics website and electronic library, all of which are operated through internet-connected systems.
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